The Battle Cry of the Siamese Kitten, by Philipp Schott*****

Posted on October 12, 2022 by seattlebookmama

Philipp Schott is a Canadian veterinarian, and he’s very funny. This meaty compendium of essays runs the gamut, and the overall effect is a calming one, like the fish tank in your doctor’s waiting room, but more entertaining. My thanks go to Net Galley and ECW Press for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

I came to Dr. Schott’s work through the back door, so to speak. A friend on social media recommended a mystery he wrote, Fifty-Four Pigs. While I was requesting the galley for that one, I saw that this was also available, so I put in for it as well. I am glad I did, because while the mystery is pretty good, this little gem is even better.

I have never said this before without intending it as an insult, but I do so now: this book is great for insomnia. Here’s what I mean. I’m tossing and turning and after half an hour of that, studies suggest that one must give the battle up and go do something for a bit in order to reboot the brain. When we cannot sleep, it eventually upsets us, and when we are upset, it’s even harder to get to sleep.

When I am sleepless, I am too groggy to do much. I’ve had a sleeping pill, and my motor skills make me unfit to clean house or do anything else that is useful. Once my eyes are able to focus on text, reading is the obvious activity to breach the difficult night hours, but I cannot be certain I’ll remember what I’ve read the next day, and I’m not with it enough to take in complex literature or nonfiction. Thrillers are completely out; they’ll wake me up further, once I’m coherent enough to understand what I am reading.

When all is said and done, short stories or collections of essays, are the best, and Dr. Schott’s are particularly congenial. Each is engaging; a few are tear-jerkers, and while some are persuasive or informational, most are humorous. Although Dr. Schott’s practice is almost entirely there for house pets that are mammals—so, cats and dogs—he has a handful of essays describing cases where he has gone far afield. The zoo wants an ultrasound of that pregnant snow leopard? He’s on it! Beluga whales? YES!

There’s one in which he waxes eloquent about the healing bond that occurs between the very elderly, particularly those in assisted living facilities, and elderly cats and dogs, and he decries the way most such facilities exclude pets; he advocates for a large scale effort to remedy this, including volunteer corps to assist with the extra labor that including these beloved beasties creates. He makes a strong case.

Funniest of all, however, is the title piece, in which he and his wife attempt to take their own cat to the office for shots and whatnot:

I don’t think we veterinarians appreciate how difficult it is to bring some cats to the clinic. Dogs are more easily fooled, only catching on once they get to the clinic door, but it is the rare cat who cheerfully saunters into their carrier, purring in euphoric anticipation of the double joy of a car ride AND a veterinary visit…

“Lucy, look! Extra treats today! And that special catnip mouse! Don’t you want to go in? Her facial expression was clear: ‘How dumb do you think I am?’ Play our cards wrong, and she could bolt for the cat sanctuary above the basement ceiling tiles. The cats think of it as their secret rebel base; we know where it is, but we still can’t get them out of there.

The pandemic has inspired countless previously petless households to seek out four-pawed companionship, and so, during the period when many businesses have suffered from a lack of customers, Dr. Schott has been even busier than usual. It’s lucky for us that he’s found the time to sit down and write these agreeable essays. In addition to aiding the sleepless, it’s a fine addition to a guest room or yes, the bathroom, because each entry is fairly brief, and the reader can be assured that they’ll have time to finish what they’ve started. Regarding the book, I mean.

Highly recommended.

Doggie in the Window, by Rory Kress***

Posted on June 18, 2018 by seattlebookmama

TheDoggieintheWindow Thank you to Net Galley and Sourcebooks for the review copy, which I received free of charge in exchange for this honest review. This book is for sale now.

Kress provides a great deal of salient information in this pet store expose; she’s done her research, and explains the ways in which laws fail to protect pets sold for profit, and she has some strong proposals of her own.

I expected to appreciate this book more than I did. I am a volunteer for Seattle Beagle Rescue; I write this review with Beagle Bailey, the fourteen-year-old rescue dog I am caring for in his golden years, flopped on my foot. I am also a fool that once, many years ago, purchased a cocker spaniel from a pet store. (As far as I know, nobody in Washington State actually puts puppies in a display window anymore, but sometimes they broker a purebred adoption.) That dog was gorgeous, but she was a mean little shit, and we had to adopt her out to an older couple that didn’t have children. At the time I figured it was a matter of bad breeding practices, but after reading Kress’s book, I have to wonder what was done to that pup when she was tiny.

The information here is solid, but the writing style didn’t work for me. You can only read so much wall-to-wall horror without wanting to put the book down; I get it already, don’t beat me! In addition, there’s a personal thread about the struggle she and her spouse went through trying for a (human) baby, and while I suppose that might have worked, somehow it didn’t. Instead of feeling confidential, it felt both disjointed and like an overshare.

Once I had begun reading, I realized that although I didn’t know all the low down, dirty details, I have known for decades that nobody should buy a dog from a puppy mill or a pet store, which is more or less the same thing, and it’s widely known. For many readers, this isn’t new information. Most people that go that route do it not because it’s a smart or ethical thing to do, but because it’s easy. When I made that error back in the ‘90s when I bought the cocker, it was known to most people, and to me, that this is an unwise way to get a dog, but I was already badly overbooked time-wise. A solid breeder is often hours away, and sometimes not even in the same state you reside in. And although there’s a lot of bandwagon talk about the benefit of adopting shelter animals, I had failed at this not once, not twice, but five times.

In four cases I had brought animals home that had contracted fatal diseases prior to their shelter vaccinations; the illnesses were dormant, and the shelters weren’t to blame, but when you hold a dying kitty in the veterinarian’s office that many times, you rethink shelter adoptions. And then there was the wild card puppy that turned out to be a German Shepherd and Coon Hound mix. She was one of cutest puppies you’ll ever see, and very healthy, but I can’t deal with a large dog; couldn’t control her, and she kept accidentally hurting the babies. Again, I had to search for a more appropriate home and was lucky to find a great family for her, but it was wrenching. My husband sat down and cried when that family drove away with our dog.

So I am leery of the promise of shelter adoptions; purebred rescues are great, but to get the very best dog for your needs, a solid, reputable breeder is the way to go. None of these variables appears here that I saw; I did abandon the book halfway through, so it’s possible it came up, but this didn’t appear to be the trajectory.

Those that want to know all the details, whether for personal knowledge or as animal rights activists, may want this book, but if you are looking for a sometimes sad but enjoyable read, something that balances out the joys of responsible dog ownership with the cautionary information about disreputable sources, this isn’t it.

Being a Dog, by Alexandra Horowitz****

Posted on October 8, 2016 by seattlebookmama

beingadog Horowitz is the author of Inside of a Dog, and here she follows it up with an examination of the sensory experiences a dog encounters, primarily that of smell. I received my DRC courtesy of Scribner and Net Galley in exchange for this honest review. And though I’ve never been a science maven, Horowitz’s unbridled enthusiasm for dogs had me at hello. It’s a book bound to engage any dog lover.

So, do you have a dog?

I’ve had a dog nearly all of my 58 years, with a brief interim here and there. I’ve never been dogless long, though; either a dog has found me, or I’ve gone looking for one. And so I was glad of the opportunity to read more about what makes my dog—right now it’s Ox, the oversized beagle puppy—work. I’d read a fair amount about dogs, particularly beagles, my favorite breed, and I thought I was well schooled, but I learned a great deal from Horowitz that I hadn’t known before, or in one main instance, in a way I had known intellectually, but not in my gut.

Almost every dog lover has heard at some point that a dog tends to be governed by its smell, and that this is its dominant sense. But until Horowitz took it apart for me and gave me the details, I didn’t grasp the implications. For example, when we throw the ball, the dog pauses before running after it, right? And with our last little dog, my husband and I would note that he wasn’t really looking in the right place, and we concluded that he was as dumb as a box of rocks. We’d yell; we’d point to it. And eventually, after he had sniffed its perimeter, he’d hone in on the ball and bring it back. And this book explains why that is exactly the correct way to do the job, if one is a hound (or other dog) rather than a human.

Sight is so important to us humans; next comes hearing. If we are in a carnival’s haunted house, and if the first room is sightless and soundless, what do we do? Do we sniff? Of course not! We fling out our arms in front of us or to the sides, partly to find out where things are, and partly to protect ourselves from slamming our face into a hard surface. And now when I consider Ox’s sense of scent, after which is hearing, I realize that by the time he has to look at something, he’s probably gained most of the information he needs already. Why would we fling our hands out in an ungainly manner if we can see and hear? And so indeed, why would my beagle do a visual scan if he can find what he wants through the use of sniffed air currents and hearing? After all, he always brings the toy back to us.

Chapters that engaged me less contained miniature chemistry and physics lessons, never my favorite, and some had longer passages having to do with human olfactory sense than I really wanted to read. I confess after the first few times the author moved from dogs’ senses back to those of humans I skimmed until we were back to the dogs.

There was so much here I hadn’t seen. For example, where does one find the best material for search and rescue dogs, or arson, bomb, drug, cadaver dogs, and so forth? I’ll give you a hint: I was crushed to find out that my beloved hound dogs aren’t necessarily the favorites here. But it sure is interesting!

Once I had read this book, I felt that I knew my dog a lot better, and this new information solved many of Ox’s previously puzzling habits. To learn more, check out Horowitz’s new release, which became available to the public yesterday.

Because although I don’t know whether a dog is man’s best friend…I know he’s mine.